In cigarette production some of the cigarettes do not meet quality requirements. A need for a solution enabling recovery of the tobacco comprised in the substandard cigarettes has been around for a long time.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 3,404,688 discloses a device for cutting open the elements comprising a double filter part and two tobacco parts, so called “double cigarettes”. Such elements would be cut open when their tobacco parts are not properly filled with tobacco.
Another device for cutting open substandard “double” and “single” cigarettes is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,233,613.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,076,291 a device is disclosed for cutting the filters away from substandard single cigarettes which are delivered, un-ordered by a vibrating feeder onto a transporter. The cigarettes are conveyed with their axes transversal to the transporter movement direction in order to have their filters pushed out for cutting.
Document DE 1106227 presents an apparatus for cutting the filter parts away from the tobacco parts in which the cigarettes must be oriented with their filters facing the same direction depending on the position of a disc knife cutting them.
However, no devices are known in the state of art enabling sorting rod-like waste elements constituting a mixture of various types of elements, i.e. both single and double cigarettes as well as separate filter and tobacco parts. On the other hand, a device for sorting cucumbers by their lengths is known from DE 2011125B. In the disclosed device zigzag shaped pushers shift the cucumbers positioned at a certain angle along an opening with increasing width, the cucumbers falling into suitable compartments.